Photograph of Doctor CookeDOCTOR JOHN ESTEN COOKE.From a Photograph.
DOCTOR JOHN ESTEN COOKE.From a Photograph.
Doctor Cooke was in many respects a remarkable man, who acquired a widespread reputation in this country, especially in the Mississippi Valley. His fame wasmainly built on his celebrated theory of the universal origin of disease, which was, that disease was caused by cold or malaria. That especially it commenced in weakened action of the heart, resulting incongestion of the vena cava, its branches and capillary distribution, and that fever was but the reaction of the vital force to overcome this condition, which unrelieved would result in death. According to him, all autumnal and malarial fevers were but variations of one diseased condition, and even those fearful scourges the plague, cholera, yellow fever, dysentery, etc., were simply varied forms and conditions of congestion of thevena cava.
To destroy this many-headed hydra—while he would use cold water to reduce too great febrile excitement and even sometimes give antimonial wine[50]—his main reliance was on blood-letting and cholagogue purgatives, as he believed it was by increasing the secretion of the liver and causing it to pour out consistent "black bile" that the venous congestion was to be relieved and the patient cured.
Amongst all these remedies calomel was his chief reliance, and was given by him in doses not measuredby the balance but by the effect they produced; so that in the latter days of practice—notably during the epidemic of cholera in Lexington in 1833—he absolutely resorted to tablespoonful doses of this mercurial, repeatedpro re nata; actually giving aboutone poundin one day to a young patient, without fatal result.
Two cases may be quoted from his own paper in theTransylvania Medical Journal, and from Doctor Yandell'sMemoir of Doctor Cookein theAmerican Practitionerfor July, 1875. "William Douglass, a student of theology, nineteen years of age, took a tablespoonful (about two ounces) every six hours for three days in succession, having taken the same quantity the evening before; in all, thirteen tablespoonfuls. He was in collapse when he took the first dose. On the third morning after beginning this treatment his discharges were found to have become thick and green, and Doctor Cooke thought he would have recovered but for the indiscretion of his attendant, who had him to walk across a large room from one bed to another more than once. Hiccough came on, the patient became delirious, and died on the sixth day. But another patient recovered about this time under similar treatment, and still lives, I believe—a useful Episcopal clergyman, and an illustration of the extent to which calomel may be employed in some diseaseswithout injury to health. Mr. Brittan, a young theological student, took a tablespoonful of calomel soon after having had several copious watery discharges. He was advised to repeat the dose every six hours, until the watery discharges ceased. He took, that day, four and on the next, three of these doses; the discharges not ceasing until some time after the seventh dose had been taken. He took, moreover, three similar doses during the same time—having thrown up three. Therepeated doseswere given immediately after the regular ones were thrown up. Bilious discharges appeared on the evening of the second day, and were kept up by tincture of aloes and occasionally pills of aloes and rhubarb for a week. The patient was somewhat salivated, but recovered. I saw him a number of years afterwards in perfect health."
Doctor Yandell asserts in this memoir that in this "extraordinary practice, Doctor Cooke was not less successful in the treatment of cholera than his medical brethren in Lexington." But the fact was that none were very successful and that as many as fifty died in a day of a population of a little over six thousand.[51]The writer recollects that Doctor Cooke only practiced in the earlier period of this famous epidemic, having beendisabled by a fall in attempting, in his hurry to attend a professional call, to put on his coat while running down stairs.
In another case of cholera which occurred at this time, as the present writer was informed by the intelligent and truthful brother of the young lady patient of Doctor Cooke, these large tablespoonful doses passed through the bowels apparently unchanged, being discharged in lumps as large as pullets' eggs, without being even dissolved. This patient did not recover.
Calomel is well known to be practically insoluble in pure water at the common temperature. It is decomposed to a certain extent by the action of light, or by a moderate heat in the presence of water, and especially by the aid of acids of various kinds, and by certain salts such as alkaline and other soluble chlorides—especially potassium, sodium, and ammonium chlorides.
In all these cases of partial decomposition some of the mercurous chloride—the calomel—is changed into soluble mercuric chloride and metallic mercury. This decomposition is supposed to result from the action of the alkaline chlorides and the chloro-hydric and other acids of the gastric juice when calomel is taken into the stomach under ordinary circumstances. It is believedthat the activity of the calomel depends mainly on the amount of this decomposition which takes place in the body.
Especially does this partial decomposition of calomel into corrosive sublimate occur, to a great extent, when it is mixed in water with sal-ammoniac (ammonium chloride), as has been experienced in cases of poisoning by the administration of even moderate doses of calomel which had been mixed with this salt. In an experiment by the present writer in which three tenths of a gram of calomel and one and two tenths of a gram of sal-ammoniac with ten grams of water were allowed to react at the common temperature for twenty-four hours, as much as 0.019 of a gram of corrosive sublimate was found.
No doubt these facts throw much light on the very irregular action of calomel in different persons and under various conditions, in doses which may be very small or very large. We can easily understand how, when the stomach secretes no gastric juice and when the salts of the blood have been greatly reduced in quantity by watery purging as in cholera, the calomel may pass through the alimentary canal unchanged, insoluble and inactive, or exert a doubtful topical action only.
The present writer's own experience—when he was a medical student, and when fully impressed by the sincereand logical teachings of Doctor Cooke, who, however halting and hesitating may have been his manner or unadorned his style of lecturing, always commanded the fixed attention and highest respect of his pupils—soon opened his eyes to the faults in the theory of the professor.
On one occasion, having been brought into a somewhat febrile condition by fatigue in a botanical excursion in hot weather, and having full faith in the statements of Doctor Cooke to the effect that calomel was of all antifebrile remedies the best, and that while a small dose of calomel might prove irritatinga good large dose"would sometimes act like an opiate," he took a one drachm dose in full confidence. But instead of the soothing, curative effect he had been led to expect, vomiting and severe irritation of the stomach resulted, so much so that no food but boiled milk could be tolerated for a week or so afterward. Shaken in his faith by his first experience, but not yet convinced of the error of the doctrine of his respected preceptor, the second trial of a drachm dose on a similar occasion completely satisfied him that something wrong had crept into the theory and practice of the honored professor.
Doctor Cooke's only fear in his heroic use of calomel was that it would salivate. But for this untowardinfluence, he said, one might do almost anything with it. That this substance which, in cases of cholera, he administered so largely with no signs of irritation or salivation, until the patient was in a convalescent state, should sometimes in much smaller doses prove an irritant poison, he did not understand. A quotation from Doctor Yandell'sMemoir, Page 7, illustrates this: "In some cases of fever Doctor Cooke administered a drachm of calomel at a dose, and repeated it until the patient had taken in twenty-four hours as much as two hundred and forty grains. A young lady was thus treated in 1826. After this quantity had been given she seemed much relieved, but to avert the danger of salivation he thought it prudent to administer jalap and cream of tartar. At night they were thrown up, without producing any purgative effect. She then took a drachm of calomel, and repeated it until she had taken five doses in the course of the night and morning, with the same fine effect in producing abundant bilious discharges, and a remarkably good effect on the symptoms generally." Still uneasy about ptyalism, he gave her cream of tartar all day, but at night it was thrown up as before, without moving the bowels. "My fears of the consequence of giving the only medicine which offered any prospect of saving her," he adds, "held my hand, and she continued to vomit tilldeath relieved her. I reproached myself on her account afterward, and felt conscious that fear of a remote and uncertain evil had induced me to stand and see her die without doing all I might have done. I was convinced she would not have died had the calomel been continued."
After she had thus taken more than an ounce of calomel he honestly believed that he had not given her enough of this medicine! Entirely ignoring the action of the cream of tartar in bringing this substance partly into the condition of a soluble irritant poison!
To convince myself of this decomposing action of cream of tartar on calomel, I placed about a drachm of calomel in each of two small beaker glasses. In the one I put pure distilled water, in the other I added to the water about a drachm of cream of tartar. Heating them to about blood heat and allowing them to stand for a few hours, I filtered both liquids from the undissolved calomel. Ammonium sulphide, added to the filtered fluids, threw down from that which contained the cream of tartar a sensible amount of dark mercurial sulphide, while that which contained pure water gave no notable reaction. Evidently the cream of tartar had caused the decomposition of some of the insoluble calomel and had produced a soluble mercurial compound. All soluble compounds of mercury are active poisons in small doses,while, as was fully proven by Doctor Cooke's extraordinary practice with this substance, pure unchanged calomel is one of the most insoluble substances. Consequently it sometimes proved harmless in very large doses, as was the case when the copious watery discharges of cholera had removed most of the salts of the blood.
The Doctor took no note of possible agencies which might make his master remedy occasionally poisonous, and scouted the careful practice of some of the older physicians in causing their patients to abstain from the use of common salt while taking calomel, a recommendation based upon valid experience, no doubt, which science has verified.
The Doctor rose to two ounces, or tablespoonful doses, during the prevalence of Asiatic cholera in Lexington, but he did not confine this treatment to that fearful disease. The present writer has preserved one of the last of his mammoth doses—one of a dozen of the same weight (about an ounce)—which he prescribed for a medical student of the session of 1836–37, the subject of pneumonia, and who took eleven such doses in regular succession before he died.
In Doctor Cooke's earlier practice, and in the treatment of less severe cases, he relied greatly on his famous pills—well known in the region of Lexington as "Cooke'sPills"—composed of equal parts of calomel, aloes, and rhubarb; or on tincture of aloes and the lancet, with the occasional use of a few other remedies. These constituted his sole armament with which to encounter disease. For he was a man of the strictest and most earnest honesty, sincerity, and zeal, and withal so wedded to his logical convictions that he would at any time have died a martyr to his well-matured beliefs. Indeed, according to the testimony of his friend, the late Lunsford P. Yandell, he seems thus to have been to some extent a martyr to his own theory and practice.
On Page 22 of Doctor Yandell'sMemoir of Doctor Cooke, we are informed that "his practice on himself was of the same heroic character that he pursued with his patients. He bled himself at once copiously and repeated the operation again and again as symptoms appeared to him to demand it, at the same time keeping up purgation with calomel. Exposed as he was on his farm, these attacks became frequent and his constitution, naturally enfeebled by increasing years, at length gave way under them."
Again, on Page 27 of the sameMemoir, Doctor Yandell says: "The perfect sincerity with which he held his opinions was evinced by his carrying out his practice in his own case. On one occasion this was near costinghim his life. He was seized with intermittent fever, on his farm near Louisville in the fall of 1844, and for several days took his pills—composed of calomel, rhubarb, and aloes—in the confident belief that they would arrest the disease; but the chills continued to recur with an increasing tendency to congestion until at last his case became alarming. His old friend, General Mercer, of Virginia, who happened to be on a visit to him at the time, called on me and gave me an account of his situation, asking me to visit him. Doctor Cooke was reluctant to take quinine, but finally consented and was relieved, and afterward, I believe, used the remedy in his practice."
A characteristic anecdote is recorded of him inCollins' History of Kentucky. "One Sunday morning, waiting on some of his family to get ready for church—the Methodist church, of which he and they were members—he picked up a discourse by the Reverend Doctor Chapman, then Episcopal clergyman of Lexington. The argument for the Old Church of England attracted his attention. He perused and studied it fully, sent for all the available authorities on the subject; studied them with such effect that at once he changed his communion to the Episcopal Church and was ever after a rigid and zealous pillar to that church, and an industrious student of the writings of the theological fathers."
His logic, on which he based his medical theory and practice, is most elaborately set forth in his only large work, already mentioned—A Treatise of Pathology and Therapeutics—and was tersely summed up by a most zealous believer and pupil of his[52]as follows: "If all diseases result from congestion of thevena cava, and if calomel is the best and most reliable remedy, what is the use of applying to any other means?"
Because of its simplicity and its apparently logical basis, the system of Doctor Cooke was very attractive to students of medicine. If true—and they could not doubt it—it was a great new discovery of a royal road to medical practice which avoided all the drudgery over pathology, chemistry, the materia medica and therapeutics of the old school. All ordinary diseases were a unit produced by a common cause, and calomel was the principal panacea!
But alas! the logical system of Doctor Cooke, like many other beautiful and well-laid superstructures, failed in this essential thing—the foundation on which it was raised was not true.
Logical minds too often willingly lay down or accept assumptions, or uncertain facts, as axioms, and are satisfiedif the deductions from these are logically accurate and perfect. Doctor Cooke, in a slow and laborious way, took infinite pains to build up his logical superstructure. The writer recollects his illustration of logical connections, by means of certain pieces of wood united by strings; and, notwithstanding his unadorned style and slow and hesitating manner, his students—carried away by his well-known truthfulness, sincerity, and earnest zeal, and incapable of judging for themselves of the validity of his premises—accepted his doctrine as a new revelation and were almost unanimously his ardent followers until experience or more ample knowledge opened their eyes to its faults.
Before he removed from Transylvania School to the new one in Louisville in 1837, severe criticisms of his teachings had been published. Indeed it had begun to be believed by some that these teachings were marring the prosperity of that old college. Soon after his removal to Louisville, we are told by Doctor Yandell, "the current which from the first had set in against his theory and practice grew every year more formidable" until "assailed on all sides, and from within as well as from without, his theory steadily lost ground, his practice grew more unpopular and his influence as a teacher visibly declined from the day he began to lecture in Louisville."[53]Sothat in 1843 he was, on petition of the students, retired on a three years' pension of two thousand dollars per annum.
Besides the two volumes of hisPathology and Therapeuticshe published a small work onAutumnal Diseases, and a number of medical papers inThe Transylvania Journal of Medicine, of which he was one of the original editors. The congestive theory of disease had its short day, like many others which have floated like bubbles on the stream of medical progress. We remember it as one of the curiosities of medical literature.[54]
Was born in Woodford County, Kentucky, at "Greenfields," October 6, 1794. He connected himself with the Medical Department of Transylvania University in 1825. He had been called by the Trustees in a previous year to the chair of Materia Medica and Medical Botany, but did not at once accept.
Doctor Short was a most upright, conscientious, modest, undemonstrative gentleman of great delicacy offeeling. He was a most zealous and industrious botanist, and was possessed of artistic tastes and ability.
One of his greatest pleasures was in his extensive herbarium, rich with the native plants of Kentucky collected by himself, as well as with those from other regions obtained by the exchange of specimens with the various botanists of the world, with whom he corresponded individually and extensively. He, in conjunction with Professors H. H. Eaton, H. A. Griswold, and R. Peter, contributed to theTransylvania Journal of Medicineseveral papers on the plants of Kentucky,[55]and wrote for that periodical several papers on this subject and on medical topics, as well as numerous obituary notices of medical men. He was not the author of any large treatise.
In addition to his notices and catalogues of Kentucky plants he published in theTransylvania Medical Journal:
"Instructions for Gathering and Preservation of Plants in Herbaria."
"Botanical Bibliography." 1835.
"A Brief Historical Sketch of the Origin and Progress of Cholera Asphyxia." 1835.
"A Sketch of the Progress of Botany in Western America."
In 1845, he wrote "Observations of the Botany of Illinois," published in theWestern Journal of Medicine and Surgery.
In the early volumes of theTransylvania Journalalso appeared his notices of two remarkable cases which occurred in Lexington. One, of supposedspontaneous combustion of the human body, and the other ofparalysis of the kidneys.
At his death his vast collection of botanical specimens, in the formation of which he took such delight, and to which he had devoted so great a portion of his life, was bequeathed to the Smithsonian Institution at Washington, but there was no appropriate place there in which to display so large a collection. It is now in possession of the Academy of Natural Sciences at Philadelphia. During his life no less than five of the distinguished botanists of the age honored his name by attaching it to six new genera and species of plants.
Doctor ShortDOCTOR CHARLES WILKINS SHORT.
DOCTOR CHARLES WILKINS SHORT.
His lectures to the medical students on Materia Medica and Medical Botany he always read from his manuscript, which detracted somewhat from his impressiveness. He was too modest to trust himself to oral discourses.[56]Yethis pupils were always closely attentive and respectful, holding him and his teachings in high esteem.[57]
He was Dean of the Medical Faculty in Transylvania for about ten years.
For some years he was co-editor of theTransylvania Journal of Medicinewith Doctor Cooke. This quarterly they founded in Lexington in 1828.
Doctor Short severed his connection with the Transylvania Medical School in 1838 to be allied with Doctors Caldwell, Cooke, and Yandell in the Medical Institute of Louisville,[58]in which he remained until 1849, when his colleagues elected him Emeritus Professor of Materia Medica and Botany. He died at his beautiful country residence, "Hayfield," near Louisville, on March 7, 1863, aged sixty-nine years.
Doctor Short's father was Peyton Short, who came to Kentucky from Surry County, Virginia, and whosemother was Elizabeth, daughter of Sir William Skipwith, Baronet. His mother was Mary, daughter of John Cleves Symmes, formerly of Long Island, who filled various offices of honor and trust in Cincinnati. His sister was the wife of Doctor Benjamin Winslow Dudley. His brother was the late Judge John Cleves Short, of North Bend, Ohio. He married Mary Henry Churchill, only daughter of Armistead and Jane Henry Churchill. Of his six children—one son and five daughters—all were prosperous in life.
The early education of Doctor Short was in the school of the celebrated Joshua Fry, and, in 1810, he graduated with honor in the Academical Department of Transylvania University, beginning soon afterward the study of medicine with his uncle, Professor Frederick Ridgely. He repaired to Philadelphia in 1813 and became a private pupil of Doctor Casper Wistar, Professor of Anatomy in the University of Pennsylvania, in which university Doctor Short received the degree of Doctor of Medicine in the spring of 1815, returning shortly after to Kentucky. Doctor Short was a consistent member of the Presbyterian church.[59]
Was called to the chair of Chemistry and Pharmacy in the Medical Department of Transylvania University, March 16, 1831.[60]He had attended the course of lectures in that school in 1822–23, having previously acquired a good general and classical education in the Bradley Academy, Murfreesboro, Tennessee, and having studied medicine some time with his father, Doctor Wilson Yandell, a physician of high standing.
While attending the lectures in the Transylvania Medical College he became favorably known as a young man of industry, good attainments, and ability, and of popular manners. Especially was he a favorite pupil of Professor Charles Caldwell, who became his ardent friend, and through whose active influence, mainly, he was called in 1831—after he had received the degree of M. D. from the University of Maryland—to occupy the Chemical chair in the Transylvania School.
Although he had been a good and apt scholar in his preliminary education, he had never devoted especialattention to chemistry, which at that time, notwithstanding the neglect or opposition of the older medical teachers—notably the ridicule of Professor Caldwell and others—was beginning to be recognized as an essential element of a good medical education.
This want of special training and experience in this branch of science on his part naturally caused opposition to his appointment to this chair, which was allayed by making the late Hezekiah Hulbert Eaton, A. M., professor adjunct to the Chemical chair, and giving him one third of the tuition fees.
Professor Eaton was a young man of fine attainments and thorough practical training in chemistry and natural science generally; a graduate of Rensselaer Institute of Troy, New York, under the administration of his father, the celebrated Amos Eaton.[61]
Adjunct Professor Eaton died of consumption at the age of twenty-three, before the end of the first year; but during the short term of his service he had, by his industry and practical knowledge, greatly improved the means of instruction in the Chemical Department by a complete reorganization of the laboratory and the procurement of much new apparatus, etc.[62]
Doctor YandellDOCTOR LUNSFORD P. YANDELL, SENIOR.
DOCTOR LUNSFORD P. YANDELL, SENIOR.
After the death of Professor Eaton, August 16, 1832, the present writer, then residing in Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, who had also been a student in the Rensselaer Institute and consequently known to Professor Eaton, was persuaded by the late Reverend Benjamin Orr Peers to visit Lexington, Kentucky, to deliver a course of chemical lectures in the Eclectic Institute, of which Mr. Peers was principal and of which young Professor Eaton had been a professor. During this course, in 1832, the writer was induced by Professor Yandell, by private arrangement, to assist him in his next course of lectures to the medical students of Transylvania and to commence the regular study of medicine with a view to graduation.
Under this arrangement, which continued until the disruption of the Medical Faculty in 1837, Doctor Yandell, in his usual able and brilliant manner, delivered the chemical lectures to the students, while to the writer was committed the preparation and performance of the demonstrative experimental part.
On his removal to Louisville in 1837, to join in the establishment of the rival school, the Louisville Medical Institute, Doctor Yandell taught in the combined chairs of Chemistry and Materia Medica, never failing ably and impressively to perform this arduous duty. Nothaving any particular taste for so severe a study as practical chemistry, although no one was more impressed with the philosophical beauty and wide practical value of the science, he naturally sought a transfer to a chair more congenial with his tastes and the character of his mind than that of chemistry. This, circumstances prevented until, in 1849, the Trustees of the school—having come to the conclusion that Professor Caldwell had become superannuated—placed Doctor Yandell in the chair of Physiology, for which subject he had a decided taste. This change procured him the animosity of his whilom friend, Doctor Caldwell, who, in his rather unfortunateAutobiographywritten in his last declining years, indulged in much bitter denunciation of his late colleague. It is much to the credit of Doctor Yandell that, although when this angry publication was fresh from the press he retaliated by showing in ample quotations from theAutobiographysome of the weak points in Doctor Caldwell's character, he was disposed in following years, as the writer knows, to extend over these weaknesses the mantle of kindness.
Doctor Yandell occupied this chair of Physiology with great credit until he resigned, in 1859, to accept a chair in the Medical School of Memphis, Tennessee. During the Civil War he devoted himself to hospitalservice. In 1862, he was licensed to preach by the Presbytery of Memphis, and in 1864 was ordained pastor of the Dancyville Presbyterian church. He resigned his pastorship in 1867, and returned to Louisville to resume the practice of medicine, which he had never entirely abandoned during the whole of his professional life.
While resident in Lexington he was for some years sole editor of theTransylvania Journal of Medicine, to which he contributed several able papers. In Louisville he was editor for some time of theWestern Journal of Medicine and Surgery, in both cases filling the editorial chair with characteristic activity and ability. He was always a contributor to the medical literature of his day in numerous papers, especially in biographical sketches and obituary memoirs of medical men of Kentucky and Tennessee, a more complete collection of which he was said to be preparing at the time of his last illness. He held a facile pen; few writers of our times have produced more classical and graceful essays. As a public speaker and lecturer he was ever impressive, graceful, and chaste. His social qualities made him always welcome and prominent in all public assemblies of his medical brethren. In 1872, he was elected President of the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Louisville, and at the time of his death he was President of the MedicalSociety of Kentucky. His decease occurred February 4, 1878, in the seventy-third year of his age.
Though of foreign birth, came of that same class of British ancestry which has given the United States her representative Americans, Virginia her great men, our own State her typical Kentuckians. Born at Launceston, Cornwall, January 21, 1805, he was a member of the Peter family of Devon and Essex, which produced in former times the remarkable Sir William Peter or Petre, to which has been ascribed the noted Hugh Peter or Peters, and from which collaterally are descended the present Lords Bathurst and Petre. Robert Peter came to America with his parents, Robert and Johanna Dawe Peter, and their six other children, when twelve years old, landing at Baltimore and later settling at Pittsburg, Pennsylvania. The father, it seems, succeeded in none of his money-making enterprises in the new country, and Robert had early to support himself and to contribute something to the maintenance of the family. He was placed in Charles Avery's wholesale drug store at Pittsburg and there received a first-rate business education, while diligently cultivating his decided taste for chemistry. In 1828, he became a naturalized citizen ofthe United States. The same year, after attending one session (by especial request) at the Rensselaer Institute Scientific School at Troy, New York, he acquired the title of "Lecturer on the Natural Sciences,"[63]and delivered a course of chemical lectures to a small class in Pittsburg, was a member of the Hesperian Society and contributed to its organ,The Hesperus, numerous papers, scientific, literary, and poetical. In 1829, as member of the Pittsburg Philosophical Society, he gave a course of lectures on the Natural Sciences before that Society. In 1830–31, he lectured on Chemistry in the Western University of Pennsylvania. In 1832, he came to Lexington, Kentucky, somewhat reluctantly, at the urgent insistence of Reverend Benjamin O. Peers, to be associated with him in the proprietorship of his "Eclectic Institute," at that place, and to deliver a course of lectures in the Institute.[64]
While thus engaged, Professor Peter was induced by Doctor Yandell, Professor of Chemistry, to accept the duties of adjunct to the chair of Chemistry, a position made vacant by the death of Professor H. H. Eaton, August 16, 1832.
On March 16, 1833, he was unanimously elected to the chair of Chemistry in Morrison College, Transylvania University, being installed on the occasion of the dedication of that college, November 4, 1833, when the oath of office was administered to Mr. Peers as Proctor of Morrison College and Presidentpro tem.of the University. Professor Peter then studied medicine in Transylvania, receiving his diploma March 18, 1834. He was present during the terrible epidemic of cholera in Lexington in 1833, and with Doctor Yandell attended the first case—that of a Mr. Henry. Though a successful practitioner, Doctor Peter, like Doctor Short, had a distaste for the life of a physician, and soon retired to more congenial scientific labors. On October 6, 1835, he married Frances Paca, eldest daughter of Major William S. Dallam. In 1838,[65]he was elected to the chair of Chemistry and Pharmacy in Transylvania Medical Department, and, until the close of the school in 1857, was honorably connected with it. From 1847 to the end, in 1857, he was chosen Dean of the Faculty, being Librarian as well. In 1839, with Doctor James M. Bush, Doctor Peter spent most of the summer in London and Paris purchasingbooks, apparatus, and other means of instruction for the Medical Department.[66]After hearing numerous lectures by famous doctors, and after visiting the model hospitals, etc., of the day, he writes to his wife (Paris, June 27, 1839): "We can have as great men [in Lexington] as either of those cities [London and Paris], and neither of them contains a man as eminent in surgery as Doctor Dudley"; and from London, August 11, 1839: "We have bought a great many fine books and a great deal of excellent apparatus and anatomical and other models. Transylvania will shine. No other institution in our part of the world will be able to compare with her in the means of instruction. In fact, I have seen none in Europe that is more completely prepared to teachmodernmedicine."[67]
Daguerre, in 1839, had just published the process of his wonderful art, and it constituted perhaps the greatest novelty in Paris at the time of the sojourn there ofDoctor Bush and Doctor Peter; so along with the apparatus for Transylvania was brought to Lexington a daguerreotype outfit which surely must have been the first ever seen in that city, if not the first ever used in the West. This primitive camera and its accompaniments, which Doctor Peter showed to his classes many years after, can still be found, it is supposed, among the old Transylvania possessions preserved at the Kentucky University.
On his return from Europe Doctor Peter engaged in much valuable chemical research for the benefit of medical science, notably his examinations of calculi, published in 1846.[68]He also, in 1846, experimented with the then newly discovered explosive, gun-cotton, and with pyroxyline made from paper and other materials. His chemical research and teachings all were now and invariably along practical lines. Leaving theory to others, his own endeavors were in anticipation of useful results in practice. Quick to adopt new views when properly sustained by facts, he was highly appreciative of improved methods, a trait strikingly displayed when, in his old age, the most radical changes revolutionized the methods of chemical work. Laying aside the long-familiar doctrines, practiced since his far-distant youth, he took upthe new with an ease—even alacrity—hardly excelled by contemporary chemists of a younger generation. In his early days he experimented much with electricity—then little understood. He gave much attention to geology, mineralogy, zoology, and botany. Associated with Doctor Charles W. Short and Professor Henry A. Griswold, he made important botanical explorations.[69]His fine herbarium, including specimens exchanged for with leading European botanists, he gave in after years to the Kentucky State Agricultural and Mechanical College. Doctor Lewis Rogers, in his address as President to the Kentucky State Medical Society, 1878, says: "In the interesting departments of Botany and Chemistry, Doctor Charles Wilkins Short and Doctor Peter are known throughout the scientific world. As teachers, the modest, almost shrinking manner, the seemingly acerb dignity, and Addisonian style of the one and the lucid expositions and brilliant illustrations of the other, must be remembered by all who ever listened to them." In 1850–53, Doctor Peter filled with distinction the chair of Chemistry in the newly founded Kentucky School of Medicine at Louisville, since so successful. On October 19, 1853, at the third meeting of the Kentucky Medical Society at Lexington, he proposed to memorializethe legislature in regard to the establishment of a Geological Survey of Kentucky. Accordingly, he prepared such a memorial (in connection with his "Report on the Relation of Forms of Disease to the Geological Formation of a Region"), accompanied by a geological map, colored by himself.[70]In consequence of this memorial, which was unanimously sanctioned by the several agricultural societies of the State, the first Geological Survey of Kentucky—which was also the first large State enterprise of the kind undertaken in the West—was begun in 1854, under the able and experienced direction of Doctor David Dale Owen. While chemist to this survey, Doctor Peter demonstrated what previously he had sturdily maintained and ably argued—that by soil analysis could be determined the elements necessary to increase and preserve the fertility of soils.[71]He was probably the first in America to apply quantitative and qualitative analysis in this manner—certainly the first to apply it to any great extent. He proved by numerous analyses that chemical analysis as practiced by him was capable of showing the deterioration of soils by long cultivation. He did this by comparing the composition of the virginsoil with that of soil taken from a near-by old field.[72]The amount of chemical work accomplished by Doctor Peter in the Kentucky Survey seems wellnigh impossible when it is considered that at the same time he lectured daily six times a week in two colleges—never omitting to prepare experiments in illustration of his subject. Some Eastern chemists were actually disposed to dispute the facts. One of these asserted that "no chemist could make more than one soil analysis in less than a month." Doctor Owen says in this regard: "Without a knowledge of the peculiar circumstances under which the work was performed, the amount of Doctor Peter's chemical labor during the last six years, as chemical assistant to the Survey of Kentucky, might appear incredible, for he has, in fact, performed a greater number ofreliable,detailed,practically usefulanalyses of soils than any living chemist"[73]—which comes with authority, forDoctor Owen, a man not given to exaggeration, was in position to view the whole field, and as Director fully and faithfully informed himself as to what was going on all over the world in matters relating to his department. Doctor Owen said no chemists in this country had thought proper to turn their special attention to soil analysis, but that Doctor Peter, with the help of only one assistant to do the more mechanical part of the work, had in six years of the survey made one thousand, one hundred and twenty-six quantitative analyses, three hundred and seventy-five of which were of soils in which, on an average, twelve different substances were determined. In addition to this and the preparation of his own chemical report, Doctor Peter personally supervised the publication of the four royal 8vo volumes of this Survey, reading and correcting all proof and adding an obituary biographical sketch of his friend Doctor Owen, whose death, November 13, 1860, had terminated the survey. Before arrangements could be made to continue this important public work the Civil War intervened, putting a stop to all such beneficent pursuits. Doctor Peter unhesitatingly and warmly upheld his adopted country against secession. Unable to take the field with his friend, Ethelbert Dudley, he promptly fell into the ranks of Dudley's Home Guards, shoulder to shoulderwith Benjamin Gratz, Madison C. Johnson, David A. Sayre, and other such fellow-citizens.[74]He was appointed Acting Assistant Surgeon in charge of Military Hospitals at Lexington, Kentucky, being most of the time senior surgeon in charge, quickly bringing his hospitals to a high state of order and efficiency. It was this gift of reducing to system, combined with untiring energy and diligence, which in his long life tended to make all his work both rapid and successful. Thus he carried on simultaneously numbers of analyses with immense saving of time, while other chemists went through each operation separately—making his results almost beyond belief. When, after the war, the survey was resumed under Professor N. S. Shaler, Doctor Peter prepared three chemical reports of his analytical work, 1873–78. A total of four hundred and seventy-seven pages, containing eight hundred and seventy-one analyses.
In the survey continued under the late John R. Procter, he prepared six reports, five of which were published,covering five hundred and eighty-eight pages, describing nine hundred and seventy-seven analyses—a total of one thousand, eight hundred and forty-eight published analyses. The sixth report—the ninth of the new survey—made to Procter, was not published for the lack of funds, and the manuscript seems to have been lost. The analyses, of which there are about four hundred, will be published, however, by the present able director of the newly resumed Geological Survey, Professor C. J. Norwood, in as nearly the original form as can be restored from the records. Thus, with the one assistant, Doctor Peter made for the new survey about two thousand, two hundred and fifty analyses. Besides which, during his active life in Lexington, he had at all times considerable practice as consulting and analytical chemist, making for individuals many analyses not included in the above. As a toxicologist he had a high reputation, and his expert testimony usually carried the day in cases wherein he was called. At the time of the First Kentucky Survey, under Doctor Owen, Doctor Peter had also contributed to the second report of a Geological Reconnoissance of the Southern and Middle Counties of Arkansas, made during the years 1859 and 1860, an octavo volume of four hundred and thirty-three pages, in which he gives the history of two hundred andseventy-one chemical analyses made by himself of soils, subsoils, under-clays, nitre-earths, etc., of Arkansas, with remarks in one hundred and twenty-five pages of report. At the same time he made chemical analyses of thirty-three soils, subsoils, etc., of the State of Indiana for the survey of that State begun by Doctor D. D. Owen and continued, on Doctor Owen's death, by his brother, Colonel Richard Owen. It will be seen by reference to the Kentucky Geological Reports that Doctor Peter was the first, or among the first, to point out the fact that the lower Silurian limestones always contain a notable quantity of phosphates, and that this circumstance in part accounts for the richness of our bluegrass soils[75]—facts which he brought to the attention of the agricultural public as early as April, 1849, in theAlbany Cultivator, of New York.
He was apparently the first to show that some of the upper layers of the Trenton limestone are remarkably rich in phosphates, as shown by his analyses published in the reports cited.
In 1865, when in accordance with Honorable John B. Bowman's lofty educational plans Kentucky University was removed to Lexington, was united withTransylvania, and included the State Agricultural and Mechanical College, Doctor Peter occupied the chair of Chemistry and Experimental Philosophy in the new University, lecturing daily in two colleges, having declined the Presidency of the Agricultural and Mechanical College, which was offered him by Regent Bowman. At this period he devoted his every energy of mind and body to assist in the upbuilding of what he fondly hoped would be the great educational institution of the West and South; for the training especially of Kentucky's youth of every rank and creed, and for the benefit of all men of all nations who sought knowledge.[76]He accepted and accomplished, it was said at the time, the work of three average men. On the separation of the State College from the Kentucky University, after a bitter sectarian controversy in which he manfully defended the Transylvania trusts—little understood by some of the controversialists—he remained with the State College at the head of the Chemical Department.[77]
In 1887, Doctor Peter was made Emeritus Professor of Chemistry in the State College. It would be of interest to give a detailed account of Doctor Peter's writings, but this must of necessity be reserved for a more extended biography. He was an easy, practical, and prolific writer on a large range of subjects. Deeply interested in agriculture and horticulture, he prepared many able treatises for journals of these branches. He experimented for himself in the culture of fruits and flowers—notably in grape-culture and wine-making. In 1867–68, he assisted in editing theFarmer's Home Journal, a weekly published at Lexington, Kentucky, and until its discontinuance—well in the seventies—he contributed many articles. He was sole editor of the tenth volume of theTransylvania Journal of Medicine, and in the preceding and following volumes published a number of contributions on medical and scientific themes. He took an active part with his pen in the controversy which arose on the attempted removal to Louisville of the Transylvania Medical School by some of the Transylvania professors and the establishment at Louisville of the"Medical Institute" as a rival school.[78]Like Doctor B. W. Dudley, Doctor Peter, under a misapprehension of the facts, was at first inclined to sanction the removal of the medical school to Louisville, for he says in a "Narrative" of the controversy published in theLexington Intelligencer, July 7, 1837: "I was in favor of the removal of the Transylvania Medical School when I believed it was to be done with the consent of its legal guardians, and with the certainty of very liberal endowments, which would increase its means of instruction; but when the bubble burst—when it was found that the name of Transylvania, the oath of office—principle, in fact, were all to be sacrificed to the splendid scheme—I drew back." And from listening to Doctor Caldwell's flattering offers of emoluments in Louisville—even to the promise that Doctor Peter should have the superintendence of the erection of the chemical laboratory—he joined Dudley in maintaining the Transylvania School at Lexington, vigorously defending Dudley, and himself also, against the attacks of the Caldwell faction. In themidst of the general hostility, Doctor Peter became antagonistic to his former friend, Doctor Yandell—indeed, bitter was the strife on all hands. But in after years, when the better part of half a century had rolled between, Doctor Peter, on the friendly advance of Doctor Yandell, forgot the vindictive feeling of the past and a correspondence both pleasant and profitable sprung up between the two old men, which was maintained until the death of Doctor Yandell. Doctor Yandell confessed that in the heat of contention he had said much which afterward he fain would recall. And it is readily to be credited that others felt the same when time was given for calm and dispassionate reflection.
Doctor Peter at all times wrote much on education, much on politics and the questions of the day. Beside lectures to his classes, he gave by request many public lectures on various topics. Possessing no especial gift of voice or enunciation, he was not an orator, though as a lecturer uniformly popular; never dry, though full of information; sometimes humorous, but ever dignified. He never neglected, where appropriate, to illustrate his subject with experiments, frequently new and always skillfully performed. His rapidity and sureness of manipulation were nearly that of the prestidigitator, and were the boast and admiration of his pupils. But with thiscomplete mastery of science there was no corresponding lack of business ability. More than once he was offered civic honors—vainly, however. Once he agreed to act as City Councilman, but summarily resigned because the Council unjustly denied to respectable colored citizens the right to establish a public school for negroes in Lexington—a refusal we can not understand to-day. He was ever ready to give time, labor, and money to public education and improvement; ready instantly to take up his pen on all questions affecting the welfare of the community in which he lived, regardless of applause, yet valuing the approval of the wise and good. His modesty was inherent. He utterly abhorred ostentation. Yet no citizen was better known, or could more surely rely upon the love and respect of his fellows—respect secured by thorough truthfulness and honesty of purpose—the "courage of his convictions" which never left him. He retained his activity of mind and body, his youthful appearance, his cheerfulness of spirit, up to a very short time before his death, which took place at "Winton," eight miles from Lexington, in the eighty-ninth year of his age, April 26, 1894. He had, as he had often wished, "worn out rather than rusted out."
Perhaps the words of his colleague of more than twenty years make the best summary of his life and character:"Intense devotion to physical science and work of the laboratory, purity of speech and modesty of manner, fidelity to all duties, domestic, professional, and civic, fidelity to settled convictions and principles; above all, his long and illustrious career in educating so many thousands of the young, and in setting before them a model so worthy of their imitation and remembrance; these were the traits, this was the service that crowned his busy life of nearly ninety years with honor, admiration, and renown."
Born in the vicinity of Lexington, Kentucky, was early distinguished for superior natural energy and mental ability. He was a graduate of Transylvania and most ambitious to take place as member of its Faculty. Appointed to the chair of Institutes of Medicine in 1837, having been called from the Medical College of Ohio, at Cincinnati, where he held a professorship, he occupied the position in Lexington until 1843–44, and died a few years thereafter. He was Dean of the Medical Faculty in 1838.
Doctor Cross contributed several papers to the medical journals, but wrote no large work. He was distinguished for readiness and brilliancy rather than forsolidity. His strong ambition and self-confidence, with his considerable abilities and extensive reading, gave promise of a most distinguished career, which unhappily a certain want of mental ballast measurably prevented.[79]
Was a native of Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, and was a little over fifty years of age at the time of his decease. Born and educated among the Germans of Lancaster, he retained the peculiar accent and idiom of that people to the day of his death, as also their habits of industry and perseverance in favorite pursuits. At an early period of his history, Doctor Eberle was deeply involved in politics and for some time conducted a German political paper. Prior to his removal to Philadelphia, which occurred about the year 1818, he published several interesting papers in theNew York Medical Repositoryand other journals. Shortly after his settlement in Philadelphia, he became the editor of theAmerican Medical Recorder, known throughout the country as one of our ablest periodicals. In 1822, his work onTherapeutics and Materia Medicafirst appeared, after having encountered many obstacles that for a time seemedto preclude its publication. The author assured the writer of this notice that he failed in all his attempts to procure a publisher, who would give him anything for the copyright, until the person who finally became its proprietor offered two hundred and fifty dollars for the work. Being the first book of the author, he accepted the offer in the hope of being more successful in his subsequent undertakings.
In 1824, on the establishment of Jefferson Medical College, Doctor Eberle constituted one of its Faculty, and continued in the school until his removal to Cincinnati in 1831. While in Jefferson he taught the Theory and Practice, Materia Medica, and Obstetrics at different periods, and was also engaged as editor of theAmerican Medical Review, a journal devoted especially to the interests of that school. While in the Jefferson Faculty he published the first edition of his work onPractice, which, it is well known, has passed through several editions, and unlike its predecessor yielded a handsome compensation to its author.
In 1831, Doctor Eberle was invited (in connection with Doctors Thomas D. Mitchell and George McClellan) by Doctor Drake, to unite in the formation of a new medical school at Cincinnati. In the winter of 1831–32, the deceased gave his first course of lectures in the Westas Professor of Materia Medica and Medical Botany in the Medical College of Ohio, in which school he remained until the fall of 1837, when he became connected with the Medical Department of Transylvania. While in Cincinnati, he prepared his work on theDiseases of Children, for which the publishers gave him a fair compensation, and it is understood that he was engaged a year ago in getting ready for the pressA System of Midwifery. That he was importuned by his publishers in Ohio to prepare such a work is known to the writer of this notice.
In addition to the publications of Doctor Eberle above named, there were others of less magnitude. Among these we name a small work of a botanical character, for young students; and it may be noticed here that botany was a favorite study with the deceased.
Doctor Eberle was not fond of the practice of his profession, or he might have become rich in its pursuit. He was devoted especially to books, and as a journalist he has not perhaps been equaled in the United States of America. In his deportment he was plain, unassuming, unostentatious; and his whole aspect was indicative of one who had long been a companion of the midnight lamp. Few there are in our profession whose labors have given them such extensive celebrity as fell to the lot of Professor Eberle. HisPractice of Physicis inalmost every medical library in the West, and has been noticed with high commendation by foreign journalists. His death has left a chasm in the profession, and especially in the school of the West, that is greatly lamented.
Doctor Eberle died at Lexington, Kentucky, February 2, 1838, while filling the chair of the Theory and Practice of Medicine.
Was appointed from the Medical College of Ohio to the chair of Chemistry and Pharmacy in the Medical Department of Transylvania in 1837. He was transferred to that of Materia Medica and Medical Botany in the following year, Doctor Peter having been called to the chair of Chemistry, etc.
In consequence of the death of Professor John Eberle early in the session of 1837–38, Doctor Mitchell was required to fill both this and his own chair during the session, an arduous duty which he performed faithfully and to the satisfaction of all parties.[81]
With equal ability and success he performed a similar double duty to the full satisfaction of his classes in the winter of 1844–45, when, in consequence of the death of Professor William H. Richardson, the chair of Obstetrics and Diseases of Women and Children became vacant. He was appointed to that chair. He was also Dean of the Faculty in the Transylvania School from 1839 to 1846.
Doctor Mitchell was born in Philadelphia in 1791, in which city for three generations his ancestors resided. He died in the same city May 13, 1865, in his seventy-fourth year, having heroically performed his duties as Professor almost up to the time of his death, although he was a constant sufferer from painful neuralgic disease of the stomach, at times almost unendurable. His early education was in Quaker schools, the best in those times in that city, and in the University of Pennsylvania. After a year spent in a drug store and chemical laboratoryhe became office pupil of the late Doctor Parrish, and, after attendance on three full courses of medical lectures in the Medical Department of the University, he graduated in medicine. His thesis "On Acidification and Combustion" was published in the Memoirs of the Columbian Medical Society. His mind and pen always in active operation, he published papers inCoxe's Medical Museum,New York Medical Repository,Duane's Portfolio, and other periodicals.
Early in 1812, he was appointed Professor of Vegetable and Animal Physiology in Saint John's Lutheran College, and, in the following year, as Lazaretto Physician, which office he held for three years. In 1819, he published a duodecimo volume on Medical Chemistry. From 1822 to 1831, he was actively engaged in medical practice at Frankford, near Philadelphia. In 1826, he founded a Total Abstinence Temperance Society, to the tenets of which he rigidly adhered during the whole of his life, deprecating the use of alcohol, even in the preparation of the tinctures of the apothecary. He was also a strict Presbyterian. In 1826, the honorary degree of A. M. was conferred on him by the Trustees of Princeton College, New Jersey.
In the winter of 1830–31, he was called to the chair of Chemistry in the Miami University, and in the followingsummer to the same chair in the Medical College of Ohio, at Cincinnati, which was soon thereafter amalgamated with the Miami School, where he remained until called to the same chair in the Medical Department of Transylvania University in 1837. He was transferred, as before mentioned, in the following year to the chair of Materia Medica, Doctor Peter having been called to that of Chemistry, etc. Here Doctor Mitchell continued until the end of the session of 1848–49.
In the summer of 1847, the Philadelphia College of Medicine held its first session, and Doctor Mitchell filled in it the chair of Theory and Practice, Obstetrics, and Medical Jurisprudence. In March, 1849, resigning his chair in the Transylvania School, he joined himself with the Philadelphia College with a view to a permanent connection.
Declining tempting offers from medical schools in Missouri and Tennessee, he, in 1852, resigned his chair in Philadelphia and accepted that of Theory and Practice of Medicine in the Kentucky School of Medicine at Louisville. He performed the duties of that professorship to the satisfaction of all parties until 1854, when he resigned on account of ill health and returned to his native city. Recovering, in a measure, his health, he was chosen, without any movement on his part, to fillthe chair of Materia Medica and General Therapeutics in Jefferson Medical School of Philadelphia. This chair he occupied up to the year of his death.
Doctor Mitchell was an able and indefatigable writer and author. Without recurring to his earlier writings, he published in 1832 an octavo volume of five hundred and fifty-three pages,On Chemical Philosophy, on the basis ofThe Elements of Chemistry, by Doctor Reid, of Edinburgh. In the same year he produced hisHints to Students, and acted as co-editor of theWestern Medical Gazettewith Professors Eberle and Staughton; contributed papers to theNew York Repository,Philadelphia Museum,Western Journal of Medicine and Surgery,Western Medical Recorder,Western Lancet,American Medical Recorder,American Review,North American Medical and Surgical Journal,Transylvania Medical Journal,[82]New Orleans Medical and Surgical Journal,Esculapian Register, etc.
In 1850, he published an octavo volume of seven hundred and fifty pagesOn Materia Medica, also an edition ofEberle on the Diseases of Children, to which he added notes and a sequel of some two hundred pages. He also wrote a volume of six hundred pagesOn the Fevers of the United States, which he did not publish.
Doctor Mitchell was a clear and impressive lecturer, a most industrious student even in his latter days, a learned, classical, and scientific scholar and a most rigidly upright and conscientious gentleman.[83]
A native of Kentucky,[84]born in Frankfort May, 1808, graduated as A. B. in Centre College, Danville, Kentucky, and began the study of medicine and surgery in the office of the celebrated Doctor Alban Goldsmith, Louisville, Kentucky. He removed to Lexington in 1830–31, to attend the medical lectures in Transylvania University, and to become a private pupil of its renowned surgeon, Professor Benjamin W. Dudley. To Doctor Dudley he became personally attached by sentiments of affection and esteem, which were warmly returned by his eminent preceptor; so that, when young Bush received the honor of the degree of Doctor of Medicine in 1833, Doctor Dudleyimmediately appointed him his demonstrator and prosector in Anatomy and Surgery, to which branches of medical science and art Doctor Bush was ardently devoted.
This responsible office he filled with eminent ability and success until 1837, when he was officially made Adjunct Professor of Anatomy and Surgery to his distinguished colleague and friend, Doctor Dudley. He occupied this honorable position to the great satisfaction of all concerned until the year 1844, when he became the Professor of Anatomy, Doctor Dudley retaining the chair of Surgery. In the chair of Anatomy he continued until the dissolution of the Transylvania Medical School in 1857.
In the meanwhile this school, in 1850, had been changed from a winter to a summer school; Doctor Bush, with some of his colleagues and some physicians of Louisville, having thought proper to establish the Kentucky School of Medicine[85]in Louisville as a winter school. In this latter college Doctor Bush remained for three sessions—givingthus two full courses of lectures per annum—when he and his Lexington colleagues, resigning from the Louisville school, returned to that of Lexington, re-establishing a winter session.[86]
Doctor Bush was ever a most conscientious and ardent laborer in his profession, and, during the lifetime of his preceptor, Doctor Dudley, was his constant associate and assistant as well in the medical school as in his medical and surgical practice. On the retirement of that distinguished surgeon and professor, his mantle fell upon Doctor Bush. In the language of his friend, the late Doctor Lewis Rogers, in 1873: "When Doctor Dudley retired from teaching, Doctor Bush was appointed to the vacant chair. When Doctor Dudley retired from the field of his brilliant achievements as a surgeon Doctor Bush had the rare courage to take possession of it. No higher tribute can be paid to him than to say that he has since held possession without a successful rival."